


everything starts at your skin, so new

by lovelightburn



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:47:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelightburn/pseuds/lovelightburn
Summary: Post-finale. Linden wakes up from a nightmare and goes to Holder. They discuss their nightmares, being once lost but found, and Holder discovers that Sarah has a tattoo. Dialogue heavy, fluff something or other.





	everything starts at your skin, so new

_Let me in  
Everything starts at your skin, so new..._

_Snow comes down, everything is new and different  
I found you hidden in plain sight, why'd I take so long?_

The first night she goes to him is because she dreams of Skinner. But as horrible as it had been in reality, her dream was worse. Skinner had opened his trunk to show her that Adrian was inside of it, but he was already dead. His throat cut as his mother's had been. Then it was Bullet, her hand hanging out of the trunk as it had in the cab. Then it was Stephen, his tall body impossibly fitting in the trunk. There was a gunshot wound to the center of his forehead.

She awoke with a loud gasp. Stephen's house was quiet but she could pick out the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of the fan in his room. The light through the window was still dim. She surmised it was around 4 AM. She sat up on the edge of the futon and held her head in her hands.

The dreams didn't come as often as they had before, right after it happened. But they were still able to shake her, especially when it wasn't Skinner who was dead but others. It had been Jack in the trunk before. A couple of times she'd been in both positions, looking into the trunk at her own dead body. Sometimes it's Bullet. Kallie Leeds. And sometimes, it's Stephen.

She stood up and rubbed her hands along her bare arms. The nightmare had left her with goosebumps. Opening her door, she stepped into the hallway and glanced at his bedroom door. It was ajar a couple of inches and she could hear his soft exhalations as he slept. She assumed the habit of leaving the door cracked was because of Kalia.

She would just look at him and come back to bed. Try to drive away the image of him in the trunk. She pushed his bedroom door open and it let out a loud creak. Goddamn it.

"Mmmm," he groaned, pushing up on one elbow. "Whatsamatter? You okay?"

Linden stood in his bedroom, feeling for all the world like a child waking up their parent.

"I'm sorry, I just--- I was dreaming." It felt like such a lame excuse for waking him up but it was the truth. "I just wanted to see you, I didn't mean to wake you up. It was about Skinner."

Holder gave a yawn and scratched his head, further tousling his hair.

"Come 'ere," he said, patting the space next to him on the bed.

"No, it's okay -- really, it's no big deal," she insisted.

He gave her a look through sleepy half-open eyes and she begrudgingly moved to lay next to him, facing the wall. He didn't hesitate to pull the big navy comforter over her and wrap his arms around her.

"I have them too," he said quietly. "A lot 'bout finding her. Almost every night for months."

Sarah didn't have to ask who he was talking about. She lifted his arm that was over her and angled it so she could see the inside of his wrist. She had gotten a glance of it when he showed her his tattoo for Kalia.

Faith. Because no one had any in her but her. Bullet's tattoo was on the same wrist as hers had been. She traced the lines of it with her index finger. Turning the other wrist towards her, she could see that it was also tattooed. Only on this side, the wings embraced the name "Bullet". She traced it the same way she had the other side before speaking.

"She was in my dream too. And Adrian. And you," she finished, a tremor in her voice. "Skinner had killed you and I couldn't do a thing about it. You were in the trunk just like Bullet was. Like they all must have been at some point."

"Shh," he soothed. "We're okay. I'm okay and you're okay."

He rubs his hand along her back before smoothing it down her arm and interlocking their fingers.

"I've dreamt that before too," he whispers. "That I didn't get there in time and he killed you. Skinner. Or sometimes the pastor."

"You found me. Both times," she reminds him.

"But what if I hadn’t?"

"And what if I hadn't found you on the bridge? And on the reservation?" she asks. "I found you and you found me."

"You found me again," he says.

She gives his hand a squeeze before saying, "You aren't lost this time. And neither am I. I think…we’re where we’re meant to be."

The whirring of the fan is the only sound for a moment.

"I'm glad we're here," he tells her. "Even if you're waking me up at the ass crack of dawn.

 "I am, too."

Her hair is loose and in his face. He unlaces their fingers so he can move it to spread over the pillow. As he reveals her shoulder, left bare by the tank top she wore to bed, he's astounded see that there is a small tattoo there. About the size of the pad of his thumb, it's a star. Not a five-pointed star but a dot with eight lines branching off of it. A star clearly emitting light.

"She told me she would draw the North Star on me," Sarah tells him softly. "Because the North Star is what brings you home."

"That's what you are. You brought them all home."

"Not all of them and not before--"

He interrupts her by pressing his lips to the tattoo. "She would have loved it. When did you get it?"

"Last summer. I'd been thinking about it for a long time. Jack decided to get a tattoo so I went with him."

"Always a mama bear," he says, amused.

"You know it."

He traces the lines of the star before settling his arm around her waist to pull her closer.

"As much as I'd love to see what other surprises you've been hiding, I'm gonna pass out during the meetings if I don't get some more shut-eye."

She hums an agreement and burrows deeper into the comforter.

And so they slept.

The end.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've just always had the headcanon that they got tattoos inspired by Bullet. 
> 
> Title and song lyrics at the beginning from Lay It On Me by Vance Joy.


End file.
